news article: software predicts "commercial potential"

Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2003 01:58:48 -0600
Newsgroups: alt.fan.frank-zappa
Size: 1,969 bytes

A sad state of musical affairs when the industry depends on something
like this. Reading it made me think of the Zager & Evans lyric, "some
machine's doing that for you".
- - -
Juke box jury computer program 'predicts hit songs'
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_759785.html
Record companies are to test a "juke box jury" computer program that
can tell if a song is likely to top the charts.
Like the guests on the TV pop show, launched in the 1960s and revived
in the 1980s, the software predicts whether a tune is going to be a
"hit" or a "miss".
The program, called Hit Song Science, correctly forecast the success
of jazz songstress Norah Jones months before she topped the US charts
and won eight Grammy awards.
Record company bosses were so impressed that five major labels have
decided to try out HSS for themselves, New Scientist magazine reports.
HSS, produced by the Spanish company Polyphonic HMI, of Barcelona,
looks for songs that match the musical traits of known hits.
Each song is run through a set of signal filters that identify and
measure more than a dozen musical patterns, including melody, harmonic
variation, beat, tempo, rhythm, pitch, chord progression and fullness
of sound.
The program's designers found that in the past five years of Billboard
magazine's Top 30 chart listings, hits were concentrated into a number
of small clusters sharing similar traits.
Polyphonic HMI's chief executive Mike McCready said: "There are a
limited number of mathematical formulas for hit songs. We don't know
why."
Peter Bentley, of University College London, who also designs musical
software, said it may only reinforce tried and trusted formulas for
success.
"The music industry is not exactly renowned for its daring exploits,"
he said. "If you rely on the computer too heavily, you will miss out
on the new things."
Story filed: 19:08 Wednesday 12th March 2003
--
If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.
- Juan Ramón Jiménez